The Harvard Classics Volume 38 eBook

THE THREE ORIGINAL PUBLICATIONS ON VACCINATION AGAINST SMALLPOX
BY EDWARD JENNER

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

Edward Jenner was born at his father’s vicarage
at Berkeley, Gloucestershire, England, on May 17,
1749. After leaving school, he was apprenticed
to a local surgeon, and in 1770 he went to London
and became a resident pupil under the great surgeon
and anatomist, John Hunter, with whom he remained
on intimate terms for the rest of Hunter’s life.
In 1773 he took up practise at Berkeley, where, except
for numerous visits to London, he spent the rest of
his life. He died of apoplexy on January 26, 1823.

Jenner’s scientific interests were varied, but
the importance of his work in vaccination has overshadowed
his other results. Early in his career he had
begun to observe the phenomena of cowpox, a disease
common in the rural parts of the western counties of
England, and he was familiar with the belief, current
among the peasantry, that a person who had suffered
from the cowpox could not take smallpox. Finally,
in 1796, he made his first experiment in vaccination,
inoculating a boy of eight with cowpox, and, after
his recovery, with smallpox; with the result that the
boy did not take the latter disease.

Jenner’s first paper on his discovery was never
printed; but in 1798 appeared the first of the following
treatises. Its reception by the medical profession
was highly discouraging; but progress began when Cline,
the surgeon of St. Thomas’s Hospital, used the
treatment with success. Jenner continued his investigations,
publishing his results from time to time, and gradually
gaining recognition; though opposition to his theory
and practise was at first vehement, and has never
entirely disappeared. In 1802, Parliament voted
him 10,000 pounds, and in 1806, 20,000 pounds, in
recognition of the value of his services, and the sacrifices
they had entailed. As early as 1807, Bavaria
made vaccination compulsory; and since that date most
of the European governments have officially encouraged
or compelled the practise; and smallpox has ceased
to be the almost universal scourge it was before Jenner’s
discovery.

To C.H. Parry, M.D. Atbath

Mydearfriend:

In the present age of scientific investigation it
is remarkable that a disease of so peculiar a nature
as the cow-pox, which has appeared in this and some
of the neighbouring counties for such a series of
years, should so long have escaped particular attention.
Finding the prevailing notions on the subject, both
among men of our profession and others, extremely vague
and indeterminate, and conceiving that facts might
appear at once both curious and useful, I have instituted
as strict an inquiry into the causes and effects of
this singular malady as local circumstances would
admit.

The following pages are the result, which, from motives
of the most affectionate regard, are dedicated to
you, by